Another civilized colony, from Egypt soon set up in Greece. Inachus founded the city of Argos, whole Abraham was still an idolater, in Ur.
The art of painting was in as high esteem in Greece as the art of sculpture. The Greeks must have thought painters more interesting as individuals, perhaps because they were not looked on as banausics as were the sculptors. Later on, drawing became a regular subject in the education of the freeborn.
Sometimes before the end of the sixth century, perhaps as early as 540, a new method of decorating pottery was invented in Attica.
The principal coloring matter used continued to the lustrous black varnish; but instead of filling in the outlines, of the figures with black, the decorator, after outlining the figures by means of a broad stroke of the brush covered with black the spaces between the figures, leaving the figures themselves in the color of Italy.
The first Grecian painter of any great renown was Polygnotus, who was contemporary with Phidias, though probably somewhat older.
His chief works in Athens were executed in adorning those building which were erected in the time of Cimon; as the temple of Theseus, and the Poecile Stoa or Painted Colonnade. The subjects of these great murals paintings were chiefly mythological.
History of Greek Art
